following on about dusty hay...being told i cant feed hayledge!!

texansunrise

texansunrise

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thanks for all the comments to my previous post. I have felt unhappy feeding such poor hay to my horse... but felt bit a bit new in the water at new yard where they all feed the same to there horses.
I have decided to move him onto hayledge instead .. i feed him winergy Equilibrium low energy as a hard feed - however when i mentioned this to other owners i have been told you cannot feed hayledge with this feed . I have no idea why they think this.. they said its too much for him but would not elaborate?? Does any body agree or is think otherwise?? I was only going to get a low energy one just to make up for the dusty horrible hay. what shall i do ?? Thank you x x
 
Maybe they mean you are feeding a "low" energy hardfeed, when haylage is quite "high" energy and it is just a bit contradictory???
 
If you feed him blue Horsehage or the equivalent it will def be ok and still low energy. I did the same as you, horse kept getting ill and wouldnt eat the stuff we were left with one winter (Hay was in short supply and so we got the stuff the farmers cows wouldnt eat...). it was worth it, horsie never looked back and is on haylege for life now.

One thing, you will have thick glossy mane and tail and quicker growing hooves if anything like my chap! the haylege makes them grow like stink!
 
Sounds like they are talking complete bollox.
On the assumption your horse is not grossly overweight, laminitic or a complete nutter then haylage should be just fine.
It's nutritionally better than hay so you may want to cut down your hard feed a bit to compensate.
 
sounds to me as if they are trying to sway you so you continue using the manky hay.
The only think you may find by switching to haylage is that you can cut down the amount of WE you are feeding
 
Try to find out what the protein and sugar levels are of the haylage you are feeding - if you are buying it from a feed merchant they might have had it tested and that will help to know what you are feeding. (Not so easy if you are buying from a farmer direct, but they should be able to tell you what sort of grass it was cut from.)

Quite often the sugar level in haylage is considerably lower than that of hay, because more of the sugar is used up in the fermentation that takes place within the haylage bale.

You can also try to find some late-cut and/or meadow-grass haylage, both of which have lower protein and energy levels than early-cut or seed haylage.

Haylage might be better quality, but it isn't always true that it has more energy/sugar/protein - it hugely depends on the grass it was made from.

So I agree with Nailed, think they are talking out of their what-nots!
 
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